


Bad Dreams (Are Worse When They're Real)

by PinboardButterfly



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 11:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11966544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinboardButterfly/pseuds/PinboardButterfly
Summary: Mila Cousland is a Grey Warden. She has bad dreams. Obviously. But she's never had a dream quite as real as this one.





	Bad Dreams (Are Worse When They're Real)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InkheartFirebringer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkheartFirebringer/gifts).



> An exploration of what would have happened if my Warden had turned down Morrigan's proposal, then me getting too emotional and fixing the ensuing chaos. This one is for my sister InkheartFirebringer who got me into DA in the first place - thank you!

“Morrigan, I’m going to have to put my foot down here. I will not permit Alistair – _my_ Alistair – to conduct some sort of ancient, possibly-blood-magic-related ritual that you cooked up wandering the Korcari Wilds to produce – Maker _forbid_ – a _child_ , to absorb the soul of an Old God. This plan is horrible. And there are so many variables. And it feels so _wrong_. I just will not – _cannot_ – allow it.”

Mila Cousland has her arms folded in front of Morrigan, standing in the soft glow of the fireplace. Morrigan’s face is shadowed, her back to the dull light of the flames, but something ominous glints in her sun-gold eyes. Mila has seen it a hundred times. But this time, it unnerves her. Despite the warmth of the room, gooseflesh skitters across her arms, even beneath her heavy veridium armour.

Morrigan relents. “If tis truly what you wish, Warden, I will not try to dissuade you. But hear me now – you will not get this chance again. I wonder if the battle we face at Denerim tomorrow might not bear heavier burdens than you so believe.”

Mila unfolds her arms, suddenly, violently, cold. “What do you mean? Morrigan – what aren’t you telling me?”

“T’was merely a thought.” Morrigan chuckles dryly, but does not seem as sure of herself as she was before. “I did not mean to cause you upset. I… apologise. Goodnight, Warden.”

And before the warrior can stop her, Morrigan has pushed out past her and swiftly departs the bedroom. It takes several moments for Mila to wrestle her nerves under control, but she’s had excellent practise, and within moments the conversation is swept aside. At least, that’s what the Warden tells herself, as she moves to join Alistair in their room, but it niggles at the back of her mind, a tiny seed of doubt, blossoming in the dark.

Beneath the covers, Alistair rolls over to face her, his face cradled on one side by the duck feather pillow. _Too squishy_ , she thinks. She is used to sleeping on her bedroll, on the hard earth, under the stars (or as close to the stars as she can get with the tent blocking her view). Despite being raised a nobleman’s daughter, she never could get used to the beds that seemed to swallow her whole.

“You’re worried.”

Alistair’s voice is gentle, just ever so slightly concerned. Beneath the covers, Mila stretches out her fingers, pressing them softly to the flesh of his torso. He flinches, a little surprised at the contact, but doesn’t pull away.

“Aren’t you?” her tone matches his completely. He brushes a strand of dark hair away from her face as she speaks. “Tomorrow we might die.”

“Don’t say that.” He speaks almost in a whisper. His eyes are full, and sad. “I – I just can’t think of it like that. I don’t ever want to lose you. You drive me crazy.”

Mila chuckles. “So you’ve said.”

“But my expert intuition, which you know is rarely wrong, tells me that _that’s_ not why you’re worried.” The jokiness drops almost instantly from Alistair’s voice. “So… are you going to tell me what’s really bothering you? No pressure, of course.”

“Morrigan.”

“What has she done this time?”

“Nothing. Not really. It was just…something she said. That tomorrow might bear heavier burdens than I’d be willing to bear.”

Alistair makes an adorably unattractive noise, somewhere between a snort and a chuckle.

“Oh, don’t listen to that heartless witch. She probably has nothing better to do with her time than drop vaguely menacing and slightly cryptic dialogue before running off to laugh about it while we’re left scratching our heads and tying ourselves in knots trying to figure out what the hell she’s talking about.”

Mila can’t suppress a giggle. “You’re terrible, Alistair.”

The other Warden grins, hand snaking about the warrior’s waist, pulling her into him as he peppers her nose and cheeks with gentle, appreciative kisses. “I am, aren’t I? But, in all seriousness, just ignore her. Get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll have slain the archdemon before you know it. Riordan gets the glorious death, we live to tell the tale, and Morrigan can go back to her hut in the woods. Deal?”

Mila kisses him back, deeply, hungrily, but pulls away when she feels his grip on her tighten. “It’s a deal. I promise.”

But promises are made to be broken.

The siege of Denerim is long and bloody. Mila remembers little, apart from the endless bottles of poultice she leaves in her wake, and the countless cuts that are made and healed and reopened across her body. When they reach the roof of Fort Drakon she remembers the tremble in her arms as she struggles to cut through the waves of darkspawn, remembers the ice in her bones when she lays eyes on the archdemon for the first time, remembers the cries, strangled, as they try and escape her throat when first Leliana, then Wynne, then she, falls to its fury.

She remembers the pain, like fire, through every muscle as its massive claws tear her armour apart, dragging the metal down through into her skin, down into her body, tendons and other parts she can’t name shredding under its sheer power.

And when she hits the stone, not quite dead, but well on her way, it’s Alistair who takes up her fallen sword, and she screams as he plunges it into the head of the beast. She knows what will happen. She watched Riordan fall from the back of the dragon as it flew. It only takes a moment, but she’s forced to watch, tears burning her eyes, as the love of her life gives his to spare hers.

Mila Cousland gasps, an awful, hoarse noise, and awakens, breathless, her bedsheets soaked in sweat. Alistair stirs beside her, worry creasing his brow as he wakes at her distress. The Arl’s Castle is still, and silent, and without warning she starts crying. These great, gulping tears, hot and fast, so fast she can’t really breathe – quite unattractive, really. More of a panic attack than anything else. And Alistair sets them both upright, places reassuring hands on her shoulders, voice a constant murmur of comfort. She throws her arms around him, sobbing into his neck, and he holds her, until the shaking stops.

“Alright, it’s alright.”

 _He is real_ , she thinks, in wonder, in awe, squeezing him tighter than she knows must be comfortable, but she can’t help it. She grips the skin of his back, breathes the soft scent of his skin, buries herself in the solidity of his chest. _He’s here and he’s real and he’s **alive**._

“Now, do you want to tell me what that was all about?”

The first thing that comes out of her mouth instantly makes him recoil in horror.

“You have to sleep with Morrigan. Right now.” Her voice is rough and still choked with tears, yet barely giving him pause to answer. “Get up, I have to apologise to her.”

As much as it pains her, she scrambles back from his embrace, kicking out the covers of the bed, wrapping a dress robe about herself so that she’s at least semi-decent to go roaming the halls of Redcliffe Castle at night. _Nothing is worse than the future I saw. Nothing. If it means he must sleep with her, then so be it. I beg forgiveness from Morrigan. I cannot lose him. I cannot._

“Whoa, whoa, slow _down_ ,” Alistair protests, then adds: “darling, _please_ ,” when he sees the other Warden’s rapidly increasingly progress towards the door. His tone makes her freeze with her fingers around the handle.

“Please. Just – just wait a minute, and tell me what’s going on.”

Mila takes a deep, shaking breath. “We have dreams. Nightmares. Of the darkspawn, of the archdemon, whatever. More, vivid, the closer they get.”

Alistair nods, following, for now.

“Well…” she struggles, throat closing up at the mere memory of what she just witnessed, what she felt at the time was completely, utterly, real. “I think… I had some kind of… vision. Premonition.”

Alistair cocks his head like a confused puppy. “You mean like what Leliana said she’d had?”

“Sure.” _Whatever it takes to get him to believe me_. “And in it… we were at Denerim. It was tomorrow. We… _won_.”

“And we’re not jumping for joy at this, why?”

“Because Leliana died. Wynne died. I died. But not before I watched you defeat the archdemon. Not before I watched _you_ die.”

By the time she says those last words her voice is torn ragged with emotion. Alistair is still, mouth moving in attempts to collect words that are not there. It takes several tries for him to get anything out.

“A-And Riordan?”

“Dies. Everybody dies. There is no-one left to kill it but you.”

Mila’s crying, all of a sudden, dissipates entirely. She crosses the room, fingers curling about Alistair’s strong jaw, pulling him in for a desperate kiss, like a drowning woman amidst the waves. He does not resist, lets her bite at his lips, lets her take his breath away, kiss him deep. When she pulls back, her eyes are red and swollen, but her face is dry of tears, and set with the kind of determination he has rarely seen.

“It will not take you away from me. Not when it took this whole thing for us to find each other. I will not lose any more of the people I love.”

Briefly her mind finds the faces of her parents, her brother, but she discards them, anger, white and hot, taking their place, springing forth from where she usually keeps it caged and restrained.

“And if that means you have to fuck Morrigan, by all means. But I won’t lose you. Not again.”

Alistair looks as though he might protest, but after a long minute, simply nods. “If that is what you think is best, my love.”

She melts. Just looking at the adoration, acceptance, the utter _trust_ , in his face, she melts. She hopes she echoes the same. She bends down to him again, planting kisses across his lips. He merely smiles, closing his eyes briefly, and her heart aches for him all the more.

The intensity of the moment passes, and she pulls him to his feet. “Come on. We should waken Morrigan, before it is not too late.”

His grip on her hand tightens as she leads him through the corridors of Redcliffe Castle under the veil of darkness. He squeezes it gently, and she glances back at him over her shoulder, squeezing it in return. Outside of Morrigan’s bedroom doors, they pause. Mila looks her betrothed in the eye.

“Anything we do, from here on out, we do together. Alright?”

And Alistair smiles. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

 

 


End file.
